Circuses

When most people hear the word Circus, they think of popcorn, candy, ‘wild’ animals and fun. However, behind the glitter and the glitz of the circus lies a cruel world of animal suffering.

– In Defense of Animals

In circuses, the animals are unwilling participants in a show that jeopardizes their health, their mental well-being and their lives. Animals do not balance on balls, leap through rings of fire or do handstands in the wild. These are unnatural behaviors, “taught” through grueling training sessions involving beatings and deprivation. There is no positive reinforcement. Animals perform because of the consequences of not performing these bizarre and sometimes painful tricks.

Georgia Animal Rights and Protection holds demonstrations outside circuses in the Atlanta area that use wild animals. GARP works to educate and inform the public of the cruelty, the mistreatment and the public health risk the use of wild animals in circuses poses.

Each year GARP holds demos during Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus’shows in Atlanta and Duluth and Circus Vazquez’s shows in Atlanta.

GARP assists Ban the Bullhook— a movement to restrict the use of the bullhook from beating, prodding and intimidating elephants during training sessions– with outreach and legislation efforts.